Recollections of a Tardis, a Castle, and a Madman
by MomotsukiNezumi
Summary: Three times the Doctor went to Hogwarts, and the chaos that followed him. The Doctor always liked going to new places, but those new places weren't always as fond of him. Oh well, at least he was nice enough to say sorry for crashing into the Whomping Willow. He really didn't mean to drag any aliens into the place, either. Fiveshot. ON HIATUS UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
1. Chapter 1: Watch out for that tree!

**I'm a fan of both Doctor Who and Harry Potter. This set of stories is the combined, schizophrenic brainchild of myself and my fellow Doctor Who and Harry Potter fans, who all came together on Monday after a particularly interesting crossover discussion. **

**The idea stemmed from a question that popped into my head that afternoon: "If the Room of Requirement can make anything that you want (within reason), than can it open up to give you the bigger-on-the-inside room you step into when you enter the Tardis?" **

**We all decided to try and make our own one-twoshots for this crossover, with each person being taking a year, Doctor regeneration, Harry Potter character, and alien conflict of their choosing, with instructions to tie the entire thing into some of the vaguely-explained parts of Harry Potter. My prompt: 9th Doctor, 3rd year, Trelawney prediction, Silence, Remembrall, Filch, and Boggart.**

**The game is on. I make two moves, the rest of my fellows make the other five moves. Let's see what comes out. **

**Please, no flaming. Flames will only be used to light up some of Fred and George's fireworks, and Professor Snape will have an aneurism if they set off another batch on the Quidditch pitch again underneath the Slytherin team's broomsticks. **

* * *

It began, like most days at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, with the usual chaos.

The birds were crashing into the Whomping Willow, Peeves was spitting Ink Pellets at angry second year girls, Moaning Myrtle was sulking in her haunted toilet, Professor Sprout was watering a new batch of baby Mandrakes, the Giant Squid was scooping up screaming first years from the deep end of the Lake, Fred and George Weasley had tied a lit Filbuster's Firework to Mrs. Norris' tail and let her loose in the Sytherin Common Room, and Filch was threatening the students with various scenarios of gory murder if he caught so much as one more biting teacup sent to him in the mail.

And in the tower of the school's resident Divination Professor, sat two of Hogwart's staff, one a rather stern-looking woman who was bored out her mind, the other an eccentric, frizzy-haired woman with coke-bottle spectacles who was completely immersed in her work, and just the tiniest bit batty.

Professor Sybil Trelawney was sitting cross-legged on a large, fluffy, powder blue poof pillow in the middle of her classroom, a crystal ball held in a claw-footed metal basket on the round table in front of her. Her enormous eyes, magnified quite magnificently by her coke-bottle spectacles, were staring intently into the huge orb as if it contained the secrets of the universe, as her hands gripped the edges of the table in excitement. Her many shawls, dripping with beads, little silver bells, and jangling coins, glittered dully in the dim light of the smoky, stuffy room.

Professor Minerva McGonagall, head of Gryffindor and the boarding school's resident Transfiguration instructor, was not quite so enthusiastic. She had good reason for this, seeing as she'd been here for several hours now, and absolutely nothing, at least from what she could see, could be clearly discerned from the ridiculously oversized crystal ball that her fellow colleague was staring into.

Every so often, she'd see the self-boasting "Seer" get up and walk around, pacing back and forth as she flung her hands up in the air and muttered things under her breath. Other times, the frizzy-haired woman would bolt from her seat and dash to the window, staring at the clouds lazily drifting by outside as she began making indecipherable calculations on her ring-laden fingers. The air was thick with clouds of burning incense, drifting in whorls and spirals of smoke into the muggy air, leaving McGonagall dizzy and with a pounding headache.

_I wish she'd open a window, and let out some of this blasted smoke. But no, she's too stubborn, she says that it would "disturb the balance of energies in the room". It's a load of rot, that's what it is. I swear, if she asks me if I "see" anything in that ridiculous hunk of crystal so much as a single time more, I'll turn a blind eye the next time Peeves decides to "borrow" her crystal balls to juggle over her head, like last Tuesday._

Her musings were interrupted out of the blue by a sudden gasp from Trelawney, as the Divination Professor lurched over in her seat, her breathing ragged and shallow. Concern washed over her for her colleague, and McGonagall approached her, about to ask if she needed to go to the Hospital Wing and get a looking-over from Pomphrey.

She took a step back in shock as Trelawney suddenly sat straight up, her hands jerking and twitching madly; her eyes rolled in their sockets, and suddenly she spun around, grabbing McGonagall and clutching desperately at her shoulders with bony fingers, her grip painfully strong as she looked into the Transfiguration Professor's eyes and began, choking on the words as she did so, to rasp out something.

"_He...he is coming. Shining, glimmering gold, whorls and winds of golden light..."_

McGonagall stared at her, feeling confused and somehow uneasy. "Sybil, what is it? What do you mean? Who's coming?"

Trelawney let out a rasping breath, continuing to speak in that awful voice. _"He's coming, coming in..."_

"A _what_, Sybil? Tell me who he is, and what he's coming in! We need to tell the Headmaster!"

_"A box, big and blue, turning and turning round and round, like a time turner that never ends..._

_"He will come in the box, and bring forth destruction in his wake,_

_And enter the castle through a place of green and nature, _

_Then later again, from within, in the place where everything is, and yet isn't,_

_The sum of all fears will be there to greet him then, the fabric of time itself warped under the full moon,_

_ And the silence, the silence will fall..."_

Trelawney gave a low, guttural moan, as if in some sort of pain, and then collapsed against the front of McGonagall's robes, shivering as she rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet, her huge eyes wide and unblinking.

McGonagall stared at her for a moment, pondering what had been said, before filing away the information in her mind to tell the Headmaster about later. Reaching out a hand, she hauled her colleague to her feet, wrinkling her noise as a rather strong scent of sherry became clear. Sighing, she looped an arm around Trelawney's bird-thin waist and helped her walk, somewhat unsteadily, out of the room and to the Hospital Wing.

_If this really is a prophecy, I hope to Merlin that it never comes true. It's bad enough that it's been made partly due to overdose of cooking sherry..._

* * *

High above the grounds of Hogwarts, a strange sight could be seen hurtling downwards, towards the Astronomy Tower: a 1960 vintage blue London Public Call Box, emitting smoke from the seams of the door in front, and from the windows set into the door, rapid, golden light could be seen, flashing on and off like a badly lit neon sign.

Inside this box was a man, a madman wearing a black leather trench coat and looking almost comically upset at the flashing, blinking lights beeping and buzzing wildly upon his ship's circular control panel and dashboard. "Oh come on, don't fail me now, it was just a little temporal flux!"

There was a sudden banging noise from another part of the ship, the floor under his feet creaking ominously, and the man winced slightly. "Ok, so maybe not a _little _one, but I swear that I didn't know it would cause this to happen!"

More creaking, and one of the screens for monitoring the outside suddenly flickered to life: a full view of the rapidly approaching Astronomy Tower.

"Ok, ok, I get it, bad choice of words. Don't worry, I'll get us out of here, I promise. Just give me a second to set the new coordinates-"

_**CRASH**. _The inside of the ship suddenly trembled dangerously, forcing the man to grab hold of the nearby safety railing to keep from falling over. "What the bloody hell was that? Did we hit something?"

He looked at the screen, which had changed to show that the ship had somehow hit some sort of invisible barrier, flickering very faintly in a light pink color, surrounding the Astronomy Tower, as well as the rest of the castle, in what appeared to be a faintly visible, protective bubble. "Well what do you know, they've got a force field set up here! Not a bad job either, if it can keep you out, eh, old girl?"

The ship's walls hummed slightly, the noise giving off the impression of agreement.

"Well, now that that's done, mind telling me just where we are, then?"

The screen from earlier changed, turning black, as green block letters appeared to form the words: **HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY, SCOTLAND, UNITED KINGDOM, EARTH. **

He grinned, clearly amused. "Ooh, we got us a magic school then, hmm? Well, isn't that neat, never been to one of those before. Let's take a look!"

Somewhat unfortunately for him, before he could get back to the control panel to direct the ship to land properly, the "force field" around the school took full effect. The ship ricocheted off, and was thrown back into a nearby, rather ugly-looking tree on the grounds. The blue box crashed into the center, getting entangled in the knobbly branches. The ship's lone passenger was knocked off his feet onto the floor, landing on his back with a grunt of pain.

As he get up off the floor, he looked out the door windows to see what they'd landed in. "Well look at that," he commented offhandedly, "we crashed into a tree."

His eyes widened in surprise as one of the tree's many branches suddenly swung forwards and hit the door with the force of a small battering ram. The ship shook and lurched forwards.

"Dammit. Run a scan on this tree, I need to know what species it is!", he shouted, shoving a hand into his trench coat pocket and pulling out a bizarre, metallic-looking screwdriver. He pressed his thumb against a button on the tool's side; the top lit up. Instantly, he ran to the control panel and pulled several levers, causing a shield to go up around the ship. The tree swung several more branches, but this time the effect was little more than a slight tremor of the shields, nothing major.

The screen lit up with a new message, several rows of data appearing alongside a full view of the tree they'd hit. A title appeared on the top of the entry: **THE WHOMPING WILLOW. **

He looked at the title in dismay. "Great, just great. Of all the trees to land in, it had to be the one with anger issues. What are the odds of hitting the only tree for miles that hits _back_?"

There was no answer, save for the repeated failed attempts of said tree to pulverize the ship and its occupant.

He sighed, feeling rather annoyed. "Well, there's got to be people in that castle who know what they're dealing with, if they built a castle right next to the damn thing. Maybe one of them has an answer for how to get us out of here without damaging it further..."

The ship vibrated under his feet, and he felt a sharp shock of electricity surge through his fingers from the control panel. "What, it's not like it did the tree any good for us to hit it, either! How'd you like it, if something as big and mighty as a Tardis hit you?"

The ship hummed slightly, the lights up above glowing butter-yellow, and he knew his ship was laughing, clearly amused at being referred to as "big and mighty".

After a moment, he clapped his hands together, a grin threatening to split his face in half as he understood that he'd been forgiven. "Well, it seems like we've got our newest adventure, then, hmm? I'll go get someone to help fix this thing so we can go, and you keep watch and annoy the tree by keeping those shields up. It looks like we can't travel through the shields covering the castle, but that doesn't mean I can't use my Screwdriver to tweak them enough to let me slip through."

The Tardis hummed in agreement. He headed over to the door, giving the railing an affectionate pat as he did so. "If I'm not back in a few hours, you can likely assumed that I've been arrested, married, or couldn't find any bananas yet."

The answer was several gentle flickers of the upper lighting, as if the Tardis was laughing, and then the doors opened.

He looked out of the big blue box, to the protective, shimmering shield a few feet away from the door that kept out the swinging branches, and laughed. He promptly flung himself forwards, grabbing the doorway at the last second, and ending up grabbing the side of the ship, climbing up like a monkey until he'd gotten to the top. He stared for a long moment, calculating when and where to leap. "Let down the shields a sec, I'm going to jump down!"

The shield obligingly dissipated for a split second; the Whomping Willow brought a branch down like the swing of an executioner's axe, and he jumped.

The branches, by sheer dumb luck (and a few well thought-out calculations), missed by a hair's width, and he landed on the ground, dazed but unharmed.

Getting up and dusting the dirt of his clothes, he set off in the direction of the castle, hoping to find someone to help calm the angry tree.

As the Greenhouses came into view, he grinned, pulling out his Screwdriver. _Hopefully they won't mind if I save them the trouble and just let myself in..._

* * *

The Greenhouses at Hogwarts were empty due to it being the daily lunch hour, leaving Neville Longbottom free to stay and tend the greenhouse's section of harmless plants and healing herbs in tranquil silence, thanks to the permission given by Professor Sprout. His gift in this morning's post, a new Remembrall from his Gran to replace his old one, sat beside him on the table, the smoke inside warping and twisting like a tiny grey hurricane. He was glad that he'd gotten the new one, though as he looked back on it, he couldn't really remember what had happened when he'd first opened the package to get it in the first place. _Oh well, maybe I'm just tired, everyone's memory's a bit fuzzy when they're tired. _

Still, he couldn't help but feel that he'd forgotten something important. But what was it?

The sound of the door's lock clicking open met his ears, and he straightened up and turned around, certain that Professor Sprout had come in to check on him, but it wasn't Professor Sprout who came in. Instead, he found himself staring face to face with a tall, straight-backed man in a black trench coat, holding the most bizarre-looking wand he'd ever seen.

His hand reached for his wand, pulling it out of his robes and pointing it, shaking slightly, at the stranger. "W...Whoever you are, don't come any closer! Who are you, and what are you d-doing here?"

The man gave him a confused and slightly pitying look, seeing his only means of defense trembling due to his fear. He pulled a small, rectangular object out of his coat pocket, looking a bit like a pocketbook, before flipping it open and holding it out to him. "I'm the Doctor, I'm here to ask you about the tree out on the grounds. I've never seen one like it before, I've only seen an entry on it. Mind telling me why it's attacking my ship?"

Neville looked at him, confused, as he took the object into his hands and studied it. The paper shown read:

_**Doctor John Smith, Specialist of Arboreal Magical Oddities**_

_**Place of residence: 42 Gallifrayen Ave. **_

The boy looked up, feeling a bit less skeptical. _Well, he's got papers, at least. Where's "Gallifrayan Avenue"? I've never heard of it, but it sounds foreign, so maybe he's from an out of the way town of something from the north. And if he got through the school wards, he must not be intending to do any harm to the school or anyone in it. But if he's a specialist on magical trees, why doesn't he know what the Whomping Willow does? Shouldn't he know about it?_

He turned to study the man in front of him. The "wand" he held in his hand was unlike any Neville had ever seen before; he didn't think it was even made out of magical wood, the tool looked like it was crafted out of some sort of metal, like a muggle gun.

_What kind of magic can a wand like that even do? Does it even have a magical core in it, or does it run on those muggle battery things Hermione told me about?_

His appearance wasn't like a wizard's either; though it looked a bit like one, that trench coat was certainly not a robe, nor were the jeans and dark shirt, or the boots, and somehow, Neville knew that he didn't seem the type to endear himself to muggles at first glance either. The trench coat gave off a feeling of danger, yet the man wearing it seemed somehow sad as well, almost weary, as if he'd experienced something harrowing. His skin was pale, and his clothes dark, as if to blend in with the shadows. The hair was cropped quite short, like a soldier's haircut, and he was clean-shaven, with large hands with long, thin fingers.

But it was the man's eyes that were the strangest thing about him: they were old eyes, a fierce, steely grey, swirling with emotions like an oncoming storm, older than any eyes he'd ever seen, even Professor Dumbledore's eyes hadn't looked that old...or that weary. He could see centuries passing in that ancient gaze, whole empires of glass and thought and emotion and shadow and starlight burning and blooming like a newborn phoenix, armies slaughtering each other on battlefields in other worlds, the ground flooded inch upon inch high with blood, and explosions, and supernovas, and planets bursting into existence, people bowing and talking and flying and celebrating and dying and living all at once.

There was rage in that gaze, self-loathing unlike anything he'd ever seen anyone have, and a soul-deep sadness that welled up and _hurt. _There was pain in those eyes, so much pain that it hurt just to look at.

_What did he see, what did he do in his life, to get eyes like that?_

He gave the man a weak, watery smile, trying to break the quiet that had descended upon them. "You're not a Specialist of Arboreal Magical Oddities, are you?"

The Doctor shook his head, a smile on his face; it was crooked smile, but a smile all the same. "No. No, I'm not. I'm the Doctor, _just _the Doctor."

Neville decided to leave it at that. He had a feeling that the Doctor wouldn't say anything more on the subject.

Instead, he said, "So, about that tree you mentioned earlier, you said it was attacking your...ship?". The Doctor nodded, pointing beyond the greenhouse to the grounds beyond, where the blue box was vaguely visible, tangled in the center of the Whomping Willow's branches like a pirate ship in the clutches of an angry Kraken. "_That's _my ship, over there. The Tardis, I call her. She can travel anywhere I want to take her, but today we encountered a little problem and ended up crashing into your school's shields, and the shields blasted us into the tree, and now the tree's got my ship. I want my ship back. But I don't want to hurt the tree either, I already hit it, so I don't want to make things worse. But I don't know how to get the tree to stay still, so that I can leave without damaging it; if I leave and the tree's not frozen like a normal tree, I'm afraid I might end up causing it to hit itself instead, and those tree branches look very heavy. So, I came here, hoping to get some help. Can you fix this?"

Neville stared at the Doctor in disbelief, trying to comprehend what he'd just heard. _You...you crashed into the school wards, and then the wards threw you so far that you crashed into the Whomping Willow? Well, I suppose it's not too far fetched, Hogwarts has some of the best wards in wizarding Britain, surely they're strong enough to knock things back. But I...I can't fix the Whomping Willow, it'll kill me. I need professional help for this, I need to find Professor Sprout, she can help._

"We need to find Professor Sprout, she's the Herbology Professor here. She's the best person to talk to about Hogwarts' magical plants, she's got to know how to calm it down! Lunch isn't over yet, she might still be in the Dining Hall, I can go get her and ask her to come here and talk to you, so she won't be surprised about the...ship...in the Willow. If she's surprised about it, she might tell the other teachers, and then they'll think it's dangerous and try to get rid of it, and I don't think you have another way to get around, unless you've got a broomstick..."

When the Doctor shook his head in the negative, Neville knew he was right. He headed to the table, gathering up his things and putting his books back into his school satchel. As he picked the Remembrall up off the table, the Doctor's eyes suddenly widened, gaining an interested look, as he asked curiously, "Never really looked too closely at one of those before. Do you mind if I...?"

Neville gave him a long, searching look for a moment, weighing the pros and cons of such a decision; on one hand, he already had an unfortunate habit of finding his possessions broken, stolen, or altered in some way or another, he didn't want to have to ask his Gran for yet _another _Remembrall. But the Doctor only seemed curious, and if it broke, he could always ask a Professor to fix it for him. "Alright," he said finally, "but please, be careful with it. It _is _made of glass, and it's really breakable. I already got in trouble with the last one I had."

The Doctor nodded, and took the glass ball into his hands, turning it over as he peered inside. "Say, how's this thing work?"

"It works by the smoke inside telling you if you've forgotten something. The smoke turns red if you've forgotten something, if the smoke's grey, you haven't forgotten anything," he replied, turning his attention back to packing up his satchel. A soft, "Oh dear...", from the Doctor caused him to turn around, suddenly concerned.

The Doctor was staring into the Remembrall, gazing inside with a look of uneasy fascination on his face. Holding the little glass ball in one hand, he beckoned Neville closer with the other, a strange look in his eyes as he said quietly, "Neville, how long have you had this Remembrall?".

Neville stared at him in confusion, replying, "Since this morning, I got it in the post. Why?"

"Have you...have you forgotten anything recently?"

The look on the Doctor's face was oddly concerned; he seemed desperately to want to know if the answer was yes or no. Neville had a feeling that the preferred answer was no. But he answered honestly anyways, despite the slowly growing feeling of unease creeping up his spine.

"Yeah," he said quietly, "That's why Gran sent me one in the first place, I'm always forgetting things. She thought this would help. Though, I can't really say it's much use, unfortunately, since it doesn't actually tell you what you forgot."

The Doctor looked deep into his eyes, concern and a strangely sad look on his face as he said, "Do you forget things more often, since getting this Remembrall?"

Slowly, very slowly, Neville nodded. The Doctor's shoulders sagged in some undeterminable defeat, as he turned the Remembrall in his hands, over and over, before pushing it into Neville's hand and whispering, "Neville, did you forget something this morning? Neville, look at the Remembrall. I want you to look, really _look_ at it."

Neville didn't want to look at it. There was something wrong, something horribly, horribly wrong with his Remembrall, but he didn't want to look and find out. He didn't want to know if he'd forgotten something this time, because this time he knew, somehow, that what he'd forgotten was very important.

He looked down anyway.

The smoke inside the Remembrall turned a deep, blood red.

_Uh oh._


	2. Chapter 2: Wardrobe Malfunction

They were running.

Neville wasn't quite sure what the entire problem was that the Doctor had gotten involved in here at Hogwarts, but it was clearly more than it seemed, if he had such a serious look on his face. The grip on Neville's hand as he was pulled along through the corridors was almost frightening in its strength, as if he was afraid that Neville would forget to hold on otherwise.

Given the way things had gone so far, Neville wasn't sure if the idea of forgetting something so simple would be as farfetched as he thought. He didn't think he'd ever want to look at his Remembrall ever again, given that, from the Doctor's expression earlier, there was something terribly wrong with it.

Neville didn't want to know what could cause a man like the Doctor to make such an uneasy, worried, even slightly _terrified _expression. The eyes he'd looked into earlier had shown the very rise and fall of the universe, with events being shown that would make even the darkest of evils, the Death Eaters and You-Know-Who included, cringe in fear and run off to find somewhere to hide for the rest of their lives. What could he have seen in that little glass ball to make him look so on edge?

_Whatever it was, I don't think I want to know. It can't be good. _

They sped by suits of armor, past portraits and paintings, hurtling past tapestries and lit torches, until they'd gone halfway through the castle and Neville thought his legs might give out on him. The Doctor was a hell of a runner, that was sure.

_Given the trouble he's caused already, he probably gets a lot of practice. _

Somehow, the thought was both amusing, and terrifying.

They could hear voices now, students streaming into the halls after eating to go sit out on the lawn or by the Hogwarts Lake until the bell rang for classes to start up again. A group of Hufflepuff third years sped past, lobbing a Fanged Frisbee back and forth between them, pursued by the furious-looking school caretaker, Argus Filch, his foul-tempered cat Mrs. Norris scrambling across the polished floor after him, yowling like a wild animal due to the pain caused by the sparks bursting from the lit firework tied to her stringy tail. The Weasley twins, identical to the last freckle and shaking with laughter, were following at a breakneck pace, clutching a box of matches and a small crate of illegal Filbuster's Fireworks under their arms.

It was easy to see why the trouble had started. Neville tried very hard not to laugh, knowing if Filch heard him, he'd be in detention for months.

There was a sudden angry shout from behind them of "WEASLEYS!", and suddenly Fred and George found themselves held in place by the hands of a very unhappy-looking Professor McGonagall. The boys looked up at her, amusement overshadowing any apprehension in their combined gaze, as they replied innocently, "Yes, Professor?"

The stern woman's nostrils flared in agitation, her thin lips pursed as she said, "You _do _recall that fireworks, lit and otherwise, are not permitted on school grounds?"

They nodded. "And you _do _recall that you are also not allowed to use them to torture Mr. Filch's cat, correct?"

Another set of nods. "This isn't torture, though, Professor, this is _liberation._"

A slender eyebrow as raised, as if inquiring further. The twins jumped at the chance to explain.

"See, Mrs. Norris is getting on in years, so we thought-"

"Well, it must be quite boring just chasing after misbehaving kids and the odd mouse or rat in the castle-"

"So we thought she could use some livening up, you know, to take the toll of such a dreary lifestyle-"

"And as far as we knew, fireworks make lots of people laugh and have fun-"

"And since Filch is really creepy, always talking to her like she's a person-"

"Even if she's a very furry, kind of ugly person, but I guess it's the principle of the thing, really-"

"So we gave her a firework to amuse herself with, but since she doesn't have any thumbs or fingers to pick it up with-"

"We lent her a hand and tied the firework on for her, and then, since she couldn't light it herself-"

"After all, what good's a firework unless it lights up-"

"We lit for her, and then a thought occurred to us: Why not give the Slytherin's some good cheer as well? So we dropped her off down in the Slytherin Common Room with a nice new sparkler fizzing away on her tail, and she starts tearing around like a bat out of hell with that sparkler dropping sparks everywhere, and wouldn't you know it, Malfoy starts squealing like a stuck pig, and the seventh years all try to banish the sparkler, but nothing works, and all the first years about wet their pants-"

"But even you, Professor, would agree that the _do _need some livening up, they're so dreary and boring and _dull_ all the time, always muttering about pureblood rot and old customs and You-Know-Who and their families being rich and powerful, and when you add that to them living in the bloody _dungeons_, the draftiest, gloomiest, slimiest place in the whole blooming castle-"

"Except the Chamber of Secrets, Forge-"

"Oh yes, quite right Gred-"

The Transfiguration Professor cracked under the strain of listening to Fred and George's babbling. "Enough!", she muttered sternly. "Now, you two go and apologize to Professor Snape for ruining his Common Room with your crazy shenanigans. I've about had enough talk from the Slytherins already, even the first years are plotting your deaths! And given the fact that their Head of House runs the Potions Labs, with all the toxic ingredients in them, you'd be wise to apologize, or else he might turn a blind eye to any attempted poisonings."

Apparently, this was the wrong thing to say, as Fred rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, a look of pride on his face, as George grinned widely, high-fiving his brother as they both let out identical cries of, "WICKED! We finally got recognized as a pranking threat!"

"NO, that's not "wicked", as you two so proudly put it, it's BAD!", McGonagall shouted, her wand waving circles in the air in her agitation. "You two have not only released a foul-tempered, sharp-clawed, sharp-toothed animal into the general quarters of a fourth of Hogwarts' population, but your blasted firework ended up setting fire to several pieces of furniture, and two nearby second year boys as well! Poppy's still working on regrowing their hair and healing all the cat scratches! Professor Snape is arguing with Headmaster Dumbledore about expelling you both!"

Fred looked at their Head of House calmly, a confident smile on his face as he replied, "Professor Dumbledore loves us, we'll never get expelled so long as he's in charge!"

Professor McGonagall looked for a moment as if she wanted very much to expell them anyways, but restrained herself with admirable dignity, and instead frogmarched both boys off to the Headmaster's Office, muttering about detentions for the next several months. Fred and George were still laughing as they disappeared out of sight.

The Doctor merely stared after them, a faint glint of amusement in his eyes as he remarked dryly, "Well, that's interesting."

* * *

There was a tangible silence that seemed to have fallen over the castle as Neville finally managed to locate Professor Sprout, who was deep in conversation with the Astronomy instructor of the school, Professor Sinistra, about the influence of the moon's light on the growth of glow-in-the-dark fungi and the delicate blooms of moonlace that crept up the sides of the greenhouses.

Neville almost tripped over his own two feet in his haste to get to her, as he began rapidly explaining the situation. Professor Sprout's kind gaze turned somewhat stern, almost reproachful, as she learned of the Doctor's effect on the Whomping Willow. "So, you bounced off the school wards, after coming here _illegally_, I might add-"

The Doctor looked slightly hurt, replying, "Well, it wasn't as if you lot sent me any letters saying, "Come to the school, you're a wizard-"

She continued as if he hadn't spoken. "And then you got thrown into the Whomping Willow! That tree, sir, is an ancient and rare arboreal species that has resided on these grounds for over a decade and a half, do you have any idea of the damage you've done here?"

The Doctor, who Neville saw looked rather put out at been talked over as if he wasn't there, replied stiffly, "Well, if I recall correctly, that same tree damn near tried to smash holes in my ship, so you'll have to forgive me if I'm not as sympathetic as you over whether the ridiculously angry _tree _is the only injured party here."

He drew back slightly as Professor Sprout drew herself up to her full hieght, waving her wand threateningly at him, the tip sparking dangerously as she said angrily, "The only injured party, from what_ I_ heard, was the tree, and so help me, if you don't get your ship out of there I'm going to-"

Professor Sinistra coughed slightly to regain their attention, saying quietly, "Well, can't we reach some sort of compromise here? Pomona, dear, let's just help the Doctor get his...spaceship...out of the Whomping Willow, and then you can doctor the poor tree back to full health all you like, alright? Does that sound fair?"

There was a moment of tense silence, before the two adults nodded stiffly, answering almost childishly, "Oh, alright."

They stared at each other for a moment, before shaking hands in agreement in the same manner as Oliver Wood and Montague would do right before a Slytherin vs. Gryffindor house. Neville winced slightly as he heard bones creaking ominously in both hands.

"So, it's settled then. You get your ruddy ship out of my poor tree, and don't come back again?"

"No, I'm going to rescue my precious ship from your damn arboreal menace, and I _might _come back for Christmas."

She looked at him for a moment, offended, before nodding, letting of his hand as if it was covered in Stinksap.

As the strange group headed out of the Great Hall to go fulfill the promise of rescuing the Tardis, he heard Professor Sinistra ask, "So, why'd you want to come back for Christmas?"

The reply was given so offhandedly that Neville was certain that the Doctor had said it before: "The banana pudding, of course. Mmm, bananas are good. Also, there's a Nargle infestation in your mistletoe, I've noticed, so I figured I'd help out with that too. But we'll need pears, lots of pears. Nargles don't like pears."

* * *

They passed by an old classroom, the door left ajar due to the students' earlier stampede out of it to get to their lunch. The Doctor, a curious expression on his face, ducked under the low doorway and went in, despite Neville's protests that there wasn't anything in there except Professor Lupin's pratice wardrobe for Defense classes.

The Doctor looked at the old wooden wardrobe curiously, running his fingers over the dark wood as he stood back to admire the full effect. "I wonder, if I opened this, would I find a lamppost and Mr. Tumnus inside it?"

The Professors looked at him in confusion, but Neville, who'd heard the story from Hermione once, stifled a laugh.

The laugh quickly turned to horror as the Doctor reached out a hand and started to open the wardrobe. "No, Doctor, there's a boggart in there, it turns into what you fear most, you don't want to-"

It was already too late. The doors swung wide open. Neville turned white with shock, and the Professors stared, struck speechless.

A trenchcoat, black as pitch, with a luster in the dim light like the rainbow sheen of an oil slick. A soldier's haircut, and pale skin. Long, thin fingers, and eyes like an oncoming storm. But something was wrong with those eyes, something terribly wrong: they looked strange, lit up like the light seen at the bottom of a swimming pool.

But the light...the light was _cold. _

Neville stared, looking back and forth between the Doctor and his doppelganger, trying desperately to make sense of the situation. _His greatest fear...is himself? _

He remembered the empires that had risen and fallen in that ancient gaze, and struggled not to run from the room in fear. This was the monster that lived in the closet, all right, but this was no ordinary monster. After all, the monster was a madman.

And then the monster spoke. The voice, identical to the Doctor's...and yet not so. The boggart sounded the same, and yet there was a strange, mechanical quality to it, as if it was a robot speaking. The voice began speaking, reciting like a bored poet, and Neville felt the blood drain out of his face.

"I killed my entire race, every last one. I locked my own people in an eternal timelock with the most brutal, emotionless creatures in the universe, forever."

Neville wished the voice would shut up. It was frightening, to hear such a voice coming from someone he'd just met.

The Doctor just stood there, still, silent, looking for all the world as if he had been carved from stone, no expression on his face. His eyes were blank, dead, empty, as if he'd been Kissed. The voice of the not-Doctor kept talking.

"I destroyed entire planets, toppled empires across time and space, and tortured the last filthy Dalek on Earth. I electrocuted it. I can still hear it screaming, begging me for mercy, for pity..."

_Shut up, shut up, shut up!_

"I dumped a vial of toxic substance on a living gelatinous lifeform, burning its flesh like acid as it lay in a prison it could not escape."

_Oh Merlin, someone make him stop. _

"I told a Dalek to finish itself off, make the Daleks extinct. I asked it why it didn't just die. And it looked right at me, and told me that I would make a _good_ Dalek."

The voice was worsening, the tinny, robotic quality warping into madness, and as he looked into the not-Doctor's eyes, Neville wondered if this is what it was like to look at the Devil.

The Doctor was still silent. The not-Doctor quieted for a moment, and then tilted his head, ever so slightly, as if pondering something. The eyes burned with a spark of something terrible, something Neville didn't want to name, and then the boggart looked right at the Doctor and said, as casually and gently as if he'd known it all along, "And you know what the funny thing is? I almost agreed with it."

And then he threw back his head and laughed. A high, cold, cruel laugh that echoed around the room like the mocking sound of a twisted record.

The Doctor stared at his double for a long, tense moment, before saying quietly, so quietly that Neville had to strain his ears to hear it, "Neville, what's the spell to get rid of a boggart?"

Neville stared blankly at him for a moment, before replying shakily, "It's _riddikulus_, Doctor."

A nod. "I _see_."

And then he pulled out his Sonic Screwdriver, pressed the button on the side with his thumb, and pointed it at his double.

"Riddikulus."

The boggart _screamed_, warping and twisting like a badly received television signal, but he was still laughing, the sound becoming more and more broken, until the wardrobe doors banged open, and then suddenly the not-Doctor was _gone_.

The Doctor took a long, shaky breath, looking in that moment to be older than he'd ever been.

Then he walked out of the room without a word, Neville and the Professors following silently, looking to each other in worry. They would not speak of what they'd seen.

* * *

The Whomping Willow was creaking ominously in the cold, howling fall wind as they approached. The Tardis, looking like a huge, deep blue Christmas Decoration put in the wrong spot, was whirring and humming quietly.

Both Professors stared, openmouthed, at the sight before them. Professor Sprout was the first to find her voice. "What the ruddy hell is _that _doing in there? I thought you mean a _shaceship_-spaceship, not a ruddy big blue box that looks like it's been stolen from 1960s Muggle London."

The Doctor gave her a mildly annoyed look. "I didn't _steal _her: I borrowed her. If there was anything stolen, it would be _me. _She stole _me_."

His human company looked at him as if he'd lost his mind.

"Well, it's true!"

Still more stares.

"Oh forget it, I don't think you'd understand anyway. You're like a lot of fuzzy, dangerous hamsters, cute, deadly, but a little dim at times...", he added under his breath.

"What was that?", Professor Sprout asked sharply, eyes narrowed. The Doctor held up his hands in surrender, but kept silent, grinning ever so slightly. "Nothing, nothing...".

A sharp Immobilisation Spell later, and the branches were frozen in place. The Doctor stared, almost incredulously, at the frozen tree for a moment, before chuckling ruefully and then climbing up to the Tardis, despite Professor Sprout's protests. "Don't worry, I know what I'm doing!"

"Like _hell _you know what you're doing!', muttered Professor Sprout grumpily, giving the Doctor a glare as he disappeared through to doors of the Tardis. "Box falls out of the sky, box crashes into a poor tree, man falls out the box, man makes an evil double come out of the wardrobe, and on and on with this nonsense!"

The Doctor poked his head out the doors for a moment, an offended look on his face. "Oi, I resent that!"

He received another glare in response. The Tardis whirred loudly as the Doctor turned the shields off. "No worries, old girl, the big nasty tree won't be hitting you anymore!"

Professor Sinistra had to restrain her collegue from climbing up the tree to give the Doctor a piece of her mind.

The Doctor poked his head out the doors again, a look of remembrance on his face as he called out, "Neville, I almost forgot, can I hold onto your Remembrall for a while?"

The Remembrall was tossed up immediately. "What do you need it for?"

"I'm going to run a few tests on this thing! I'll bring it back good as new later, promise!"

Neville nodded. If he really wanted to remember things, he decided, he'd just make a list on a bit of spare parchment to take with him to class. Remembralls were bad news.

"You'd better come back for Christmas, you hear?", shouted up Professor Sinistra. Neville looked at her, she was grinning slightly There was a shout back of, "Alright, just save me some banana pudding!"

_Looks like you've got yourself an admirer there, Doctor. _

The Tardis whirred to life, chiming and gonging like an orchestra. The Whomping Willow shivered a bit as the Tardis, to the surprise and amazement of the people below, began flickering in and out of sight, whirring madly until..._gone._

Neville sighed, looking at the now empty space in the tree. A thought suddenly occurred to him. "Hey, I didn't ask him how he crashed into the wards in the first place...".

There was no Remembrall in his pocket now, as he walked back to the castle with the Professors. The odd weight seemed strange at first, since that pocket seemed heavier somehow than before. He reached into his pocket.

He pulled out a large, bright yellow banana, attached to a note. _Got these off the Garden of Eden. They look like they'd grow well in the Greenhouses here. I figured that, since I borrowed something from you, you could borrow something from me. Make sure to harvest them in time for Christmas, I want some banana pudding!-The Doctor_

Neville looked at the banana a moment, and laughed.

* * *

EXTRA SCENE: WHY THE TARDIS FELL OUT OF THE SKY (A.K.A. TIME'S GONE WIBBLEY)

It was the night scheduled for Sirius Black to receive the Dementor's Kiss, and Hermione Granger and Harry Potter had managed to help the ex-convict escape on a Hippogriff named Buckbeak.

They were sneaking through to corridors now, headed for the Hospital Wing as quickly and stealthily as possible. "Hurry, Harry, I think I hear Professor Snape coming!"

Dimly, in the background, Harry could hear a yell of rage from the Potions Professor, and felt his blood run cold. _We'll never make it, there's still too many corridors until we reach the Hospital Wing._

Then there was a sharp _crash_ as the two students knocked into a man in a trenchcoat, who'd been running from the Astronomy Tower. From the scent and smoke coming off him, Harry assumed he'd been in a crash of some sort. This theory was proven correctly only seconds later as he heard the man muttering irritably about, "I didn't want to crash into the Astronomy Tower, but _no_, the stupid map gives me faulty directions. I only wanted to go get some bananas from the Kitchen, but somehow I'm told to go to the bloody Tower! And then when I finally get to the kitchen, those red-headed twin boys offer me everything as a midnight snack _but _bananas. They even offered pears! Who offers _pears _as a midnight snack? Why couldn't it have been something nicer, like chocolate, or custard? For crying out loud, I even found that room that gives you anything, and I find it's full of chamber pots. _Chamber pots_, for goodness' sake. It wouldn't give me any bananas! Not even _one_!"

Then he seemed to notice that he'd crashed into them, and his expression turned to worry. "Oh my goodness, I'm sorry, I don't usually run into people, normally other people run into me!"

The two students stared at him, not sure whether to be amused, confused, or terrified. Or all three.

The man blinked, seeming to suddenly recognize them, and then he laughed and pointed to a nearby tapestry. "You're a right pair of troublemakers, you are! Next time, please, _tell _me if you're going to use one of those Time-Turner things, they make my Tardis all wibbley! And if you're headed to the Hospital Wing, you're going the wrong way, it's three doors down, two turns right, and then straight. Good job with Sirius and Buckbeak by the way, nice man, bad haircut. Good hippogriff too."

He shoved something silvery into Harry's hands and winked. "Oh, and since Snape's comin', you might want you use this. Bye!"

And then he was gone, running down the corridor and out of sight. Harry looked at the Invisibility Cloak in his hands, confused, but decided to question things later. He pulled the cloak on, pulled Hermione under it, and resumed traveling towards the Hospital Wing.

Meanwhile, down in the kitchens, an exasperated cry could be heard: "No, look, I'm sorry, but I hate pears! Someone, _please_, get me a banana!"


	3. Chapter 3: Bigger on the inside, huh?

**This section is the first half of a twoshot written by a friend who was part of this crazy idea. She's a bit worried that it's not very good, so be nice, ok? **

* * *

Luna Lovegood decided that the first time she had ever used the Room of Requirement was one cloudy March afternoon while hot on the trail of a Blibbering Humdinger.

The Humdinger, which had stolen Luna's glove to use in its nest, had climbed high up into the upper recesses of the seventh floor corridor where the Room was housed and refused to return the glove to its rightful owner. Luna had paced back and forth beneath her target, coaxing the creature and wondering how best to get it to return her property. Offers of hot tea, a pair of spare raddish earrings, and her lucky Gurdyroot were all ignored.

_Something shiny,_ she thought. _They love shiny things._

Turning around to go in search of something suitably glittery, Luna noticed (to her surprise) that there was a door set into the wall, one which had not been present five minutes previously. Curiously, she poked her head inside, and was greeted with the sight of rows upon rows of sun catchers, all twinkling and sparkling as they caught the light which seemed to emanate from every part of the room.

The Hlibbering Humdinger was immediately entranced. Dropping Luna's glove, it abandoned its perch in the rafters to skitter inside. The creature snatched up the shimmering crystals as it darted quickly from shelf to shelf, while Luna looked on with her curious smile. Turning away, she picked up her glove and wandered away in the direction of Ravenclaw Tower.

Later on, Luna overheard several fifth years talking about the Room. When she asked them about it, they (uncomfortably) told her all of the rumors that they knew, as well as several which they made up on the spot. Fascinated, Luna decided to try to enter the Room of Requirement again the next day.

* * *

As she climbed up the moving staircases towards the corridor which housed the infamous Room, Luna mused over what to ask it for. It would have to be something good; it just wasn't worth asking the Room of Requirement for something as silly as a new set of spell books. She wasn't Hermione Granger, after all.

Turning the corner, Luna stumbled on a loose flagstone and fell to the ground. With a grunt of pain, she picked herself back up again, only to find that she'd scraped her palms, which were now bleeding slightly. Luna tilted her head to the side as she studied her cut skin, a small frown creasing her brow.

_It's so difficult to wrap one's own hands_, thought Luna, _as the hands are the ones doing the wrapping in the first place. But I don't want to just go down to the Hospital Wing, not for something this small. I wish that there was someone nearby to do it for me._ Luna frowned pensively for another minute, before letting a slow smile slip across her face. If she required a "doctor" to fix up her hands, then she knew just where to ask for one.

_I need a doctor. I need a doctor. I need a doctor._ Concentrated Luna, as she paced the seventh floor corridor. On her third lap, she turned to the wall...

...only to see the door of a vintage blue police box, dated around the 1960s.

Luna walked over, examining the oddity from all angles. It was definitely a police box; she had seen pictures from the kids in Muggle Studies. Though what it was doing here, when she had asked for a doctor, was a mystery. Sliding her hand across the smooth, cobalt wooden surface to grasp the cold, shining door handle, Luna tugged open the mysterious door with a jerk.

Behind lay an exceptionally odd space, even for an ever-changing room in a school of magic. Strange, curving pillars branched off from the floor around the room, and a short set of stairs led down to a sunken floor. In the room's center was a tall, round control column, with little blinking lights and more buttons, switches, and levers than most Muggle automobiles.

Just beside the central column was a man as strange as his surroundings. He wore a long, tan colored trench coat, a brown, pinstriped suit, and a bright red bow tie to match the fez perched atop his head. As Luna stepped into the room's interior, he appeared to be speaking aloud to no one in particular.

"-and how should_ I_ know how we ended up back _here_?" he was saying. "Last I checked, we were headed off to go and visit the dinosaurs. And I had really been hoping to talk with the Silurians while I was there, too." He frowned, as several beeps and dings emanated from the console before him, accompanied by the groaning of metal rivets from the room at large.

"Well...no. I didn't check to see if we were free of that wormhole." the man muttered sheepishly. More groaning, as the room seemed to be admonishing the stranger for his mistake.

"Yes, okay, okay. I'm SORRY, alright? Look, I'll just set us up here, maybe pop my head out the door for a minute, and-" he said, spinning around to face the door and catching sight of Luna. The man stopped in his tracks, staring at the girl who seemed to have appeared out of thin air.

"Do you always talk to empty space like that?" asked Luna curiously.

"Yeah, pretty much," the man responded. "I'm the Doctor, by the way. And, you are...?"

"Luna Lovegood," replied Luna, still gazing up at the man with a slightly batty air about her.

"Well then, Luna," said the Doctor. "What are you doing onboard the TARDIS?"

"TARDIS?" asked Luna.

"My ship. Stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space." replied the Doctor.

"Well, I don't know how I came aboard your ship, Doctor. All I was trying to do was find someone to bandage my hands," said Luna, proffering the indicated appendages. "Would you help me, please?"

Grinning, the Doctor pulled out a tiny bottle of antiseptic and a roll of gauze from the pockets of his trench coat. "It would be my pleasure," he stated, moving to treat the injuries. "When am I, by the way? I was trying to reach the Jurassic Period, but I fear I might be a little off..."

"You're in the 21st century," said Luna. "Right inside Hogwarts, as a matter of fact."

"Hogwarts?!" exclaimed the Doctor in surprise. "Blimey, it's been awhile since I've been here. Is Filch still the caretaker?"

The Doctor finished binding Luna's scrapes as she replied. "Yes, Filch is still here. I believe that he's trying to scrub the words 'stupid tosser' off of his office door."

The Doctor grimaced. He and the caretaker had not parted on the best of terms, what with having met right after one of Fred and George's mad pranks.

"Well, come on, then!" exclaimed the Doctor, as he rushed back out the TARDIS door with Luna at his heels. "I want to get a good look around the old place, see what's changed since I was last here!"


End file.
